


The Wave

by madzeldacryaotic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, Slightly Hopeful Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, for the most part anyway, not ship heavy bc cody's not even there. just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-12-25 16:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18265391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madzeldacryaotic/pseuds/madzeldacryaotic
Summary: He can feel it coming.Many, in the past, have compared it to a wave.He knows that when it crashes, he is going to drown.Obi-Wan, in a quiet moment, post Revenge of the Sith.





	The Wave

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so I've finally gotten around to watching the clone wars and HOO BOY do I have some feelings about Obi-Wan I didn't really have before.
> 
> I gotta say, I can see why Filoni loves making him suffer. So do I, Dave. So do I.
> 
> As usual, comments always appreciated!

 

 

He can feel it coming.

 

Many, in the past, have compared it to a wave.

Roaring, building, approaching; looming over you until it comes and sweeps you away in its unforgiving currents.

His wave is a massive, monolithic wall of water, bigger than the horizon, bigger than he can comprehend.

He knows it’s coming, and fast. Soon, it will overtake him.

He knows this because he’d been watching _this_ one build for weeks now.

He knows that _this_ time, when it crashes, he won’t be able to keep his head above the water.

He knows with absolute certainty that _this_ time, he is going to drown.

 

He fights it anyway, at least at first. He was always told that he never knew when to give up.

So, pushing against the inevitable, he tries to calm himself. He tries to breathe--- slowly, measured, repetitive. In and out.

Obi-Wan sits, cross-legged, on the scuffed floor of a plain-looking cruiser, back perfectly straight, in the classic jedi meditation pose. The same pose he had first learned when he was still a toddler, the same pose he had ~~_taught Anakin_ ~~

The same pose he had used all his life. Comfort in familiarity… Hopefully.

Nearby, Luke breathes softly in his makeshift crib, sound asleep. His force signature is as blinding as a miniature sun, and just as warm. It _almost_ drowns out the pained, desperate wailing that the force is constantly emitting.

Obi-Wan pointedly does _not_ think about why that is happening. What has happened. Where he is. Why he has a force-sensitive, newborn, orphaned baby boy with him in an old, unmarked ship headed at lightspeed to Tatooine.

 

Why his heart feels so damn heavy it might just stop.

 

He sits, and he thinks about nothing but his own emotions. Not the cause of them, but the concepts themselves. Completely separate from the events and the people and events they stem from.

He tries to trick himself into thinking that he’s okay, that he’s drifting above it all, that the emotions he’s feeling will _not_ reach him like this.

That maybe, he can dismiss them entirely.

It’s an old, largely ineffective way of thinking for him. He used to think he could--- as a highly respected Jedi Master with a seat on the Council, he had been trained to release his emotions into the force his whole life. It was expected of him.

But then Cody had always been at his side, and Cody was of the _strong_ opinion that it wasn’t healthy to think and act like he was a machine, like he wasn’t allowed to---

_Cody._

 

With a rush of longing, he remembers Cody, and how there were times like this before (with increasing frequency as the war raged on)--- when he could feel the wave closing in, and he would retreat to his quarters on _The Negotiator_ and meditate until the waters receded, and when they didn’t, when he couldn’t stop it--- how Cody would just _know_ somehow, and he would be there, and he would talk him through it, and how he would stay long after he had stopped shaking, holding him, grounding him---

And then he remembers the last time he saw Cody, and his heart nearly stops.

He remembers the force _screaming_ , he remembers feeling _thousands_ of simultaneous deaths, he remembers stopping, body going stiff with _horrible_ pain that wasn’t his own, and, if he _really_ tries, he can distantly remember feeling his troops’ force signatures shift; every one of them seeming to be swept blank, torn of their bright individuality---

And then he remembers falling.

It was only after he landed and pulled himself out of the water that he realized that his _own men_ \--- that Cody, _his Cody, with his warm eyes and wit dry enough to be his match and his unceasing nagging over his health and his gentle touch_ \--- had shot him down.

 

It’s only now, as Obi-Wan sits and meditates, that he realizes, with an ice-cold pain in his heart, that the man he knew as ‘Cody’ is likely dead and gone.  


 

 

 _Gone_.

 

Just like every Jedi he ever knew.

 

Just like every clone he had ever fought alongside.

 

Just like Padmé.

 

_Just like Anakin._

  
  


_The white-hot pain in his lungs from the burning air can’t reach the driving ice in his heart, the molten metal running through his veins, the denial-betrayal-pure_ heartbreak _pounding through him, but the heat in the air does evaporate his tears, dry his eyes enough for him to see his brother, his best friend, Anakin,_ his Anakin _, whom he raised and taught and loved, writhing on the ground with agony and fury and_ hatred _as he burns and screams, sickening smell of charred flesh, sickening sight of yellow malicious eyes, and Obi-Wan knows he did this,_ he _did this,_ he did this _\---_

 

With a jolt, he pulls himself from the worst memory of his life, desperately trying to mentally backpedal and recover his meditative state--- but there’s no recovering. Not from _that_.

Any and all resistance he may have put up against the oncoming waters is swept away instantly and completely.

With a pathetic keening noise, he finally breaks.

 

The wave crashes.

 

It starts the same as it always does--- his breaths become faster, more shallow, quickly escalating until he’s gasping, fighting his own lungs for air. His eyes burn and his ears fill with the sound of rushing blood.

Like always, the currents of the force surround him--- and he loses himself it it, making him think and feel like he’s now deep underwater--- but it’s different than usual, because the force has never before felt so simply as _malevolent_ as it feels now. Too late, he tries to shut it out.

It gets worse then--- perhaps the worst it’s ever been. The white noise in his ears grows louder until it drowns out everything else. He’s wheezing, bent over, until his forehead touches the floor in front of him and he braces himself on his knees and forearms, trying not to pass out from the lack of oxygen.

Every cell in his body is _screaming_ for release. He wants it all to _stop_ , one way or another, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his entire life.

Some cold, unaffected, asshole part of his brain distantly supplies the thought that the whole comparison to a wave may hold some value. After all, he _does_ feel like he’s physically drowning.

Obi-Wan has no idea how long he fights for air. Could be minutes, could be hours. What it _feels_ like is an _eternity_ , trapped in this self-made hell, and every second it goes on for is another second he’s convinced will be his last. _Hopes_ will be his last.

The only halfway coherent thought that comes to him, outside of the _overwhelming_ wish for release, is that he _hates_ this.

 _Jedi aren’t supposed to hate anything_ , the asshole part of his brain reminds him.

 _Fuck off_ , the rest of him manages to think.

 

Slowly, ever so maddeningly _slowly_ , his desperate gasps seem to draw in _some_ amount of air, and he returns to himself enough to regain his senses, one by one.

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is the cold, unremarkable floor of the ship, made blurry by his tears.

The first thing he hears besides his own harsh breathing is the screams of a baby.

 

_Luke._

 

Being as bright as he is inside the force, it’s no surprise that Luke felt at least some of Obi-Wan’s crushing panic.

Obi-Wan mentally curses himself, screws his burning eyes shut, and lets the leftover tears fall. As much as his instincts are screaming at him to rush to Luke’s side and comfort him, he ignores the cries and stays on the ground where he is. He is in no shape to help him now, not with his mental shielding shattered and his lungs _still_ refusing to properly expand.

Before his breathing even fully returns to normal, he carefully and methodically starts building up his mental shields from the ruins of their former selves.

A few minutes pass as he focuses, head down, while Luke continues to wail. Eventually, he deems his shields adequate enough to be barely functional. He opens his eyes and lifts his head from the ground, only to quickly force himself back down when a wave of dizziness overtakes him.

 _Force_ , he feels like he has been hit by a speeder.

He couldn’t say he is surprised, though. The episodes he’d had in the past usually left him feeling drained at the _best_ of times.

He could do this. He had pushed through worse exhaustion before. Hell, he’d been running on nothing but a few hours of sleep a day, force energy, and sheer power of his will for the last few years of the war.

If someone needs him to be strong, he is. It’s as simple as that. It’s _been_ that simple for a very long time.

 

Right now, Luke needs him.

 

Taking a few more deep breaths, he tries lifting his head again, slowly this time. The dizziness returns, but only briefly. He forces it off and slowly gets to his feet.

Around him, he’s shocked to see the cabin is in shambles. Food stores, tattered clothes, repair tools, miscellaneous junk left by the ship’s previous crew--- everything that had not been properly secured was scattered by the force during his meltdown.

Luke keeps crying, red faced and squirming.

All at once, he’s horrified at himself for his lack of self-control and subsequently subjecting Luke to the physical and emotional consequences of his panic attack. Self-disgust rises quickly and he doesn’t bother trying to release the negative emotion into the force, but instead only makes sure it’s caught by his shielding.

As he rushes to Luke’s side and lifts him in a careful embrace, he swears to himself he will _never_ subject Luke to his own broken emotional state again.

He will _not_ drag Luke down with him. Luke deserves all the happiness and peace in the universe.

Luke kicks in his arms, and Obi-Wan gently shushes him and sways from side-to-side, tucking his small head under his chin. After a minute, Luke settles down, and unhappily babbles once, as if telling him off, before becoming quiet once more.

Obi-Wan tearfully smiles.

 

The first time he had held the twins, even after Padmé had _just_ taken her _last breath in front of him_ \--- even after _everything_ , he had stared at them and felt nothing but awe in his heart.

They were so bright, the two of them, side-by-side, he couldn’t help but think of them as tiny twin suns (and no, the irony of that comparison is not lost on him).

They radiated a light of such a familiar strength that, for a second, he looked down and did not see Luke and Leia at all, but a single, overeager, smiling, blonde boy--- Anakin at nine years old, so full of energy and power, it was blinding to behold--- _and he looked and he knew Master Qui-Gon saw it too, his overwhelming potential--- and his heart couldn’t help but sink, because it was more potential than Obi-Wan ever hoped to have in his_ life _, and he knew that his Master was going to take Anakin on as a padawan, breaking the rules for Anakin, taking risks for Anakin,_ abandoning _him for Anakin---_

 _And the worst part? The absolute_ worst _part? The boy was so kind and strong and_ good _, so much better than Obi-Wan, he couldn’t even bring himself to blame_ either _of them for it._

 

And just like that, the awe and peace he had felt as he held them had melted away, replaced by a deep, crushing sadness that coursed through his body and took his breath away.

 

They were so bright.

They were _too_ bright.

They couldn’t stay together.

That realization had nearly broken him, then. He had nearly fallen apart, right in front of Bail, in front of Yoda. He didn’t, but it was a close thing.

  
  


The following conversation he had with Bail and Yoda concerning their plan for the future was by far the heaviest he could ever remember having.

Yoda had felt the twins’ force signatures, and he had reached the same conclusion Obi-Wan had. They needed to be separated if they wanted any chance at living happy lives, undetected by the Empire.

By then, Obi-Wan had long since decided that he would rather die than see Luke and Leia’s happiness be tainted by the circumstances of their birth.

(It seems that he would rather die than do a lot of things, lately.)

For the same reason, they were also not to be told of their true parentage.

Obi-Wan can see the logic in these decisions.

If happiness and the truth could not exist beside each other, they could at least give Luke and Leia a chance at happiness.

So, he will lie.

 

Luke stirs and kicks a bit in his arms, bringing Obi-Wan out of his thoughts. When Luke starts to whine, Obi-Wan gently shushes him and mumbles into the soft tufts of blonde hair on Luke’s head, “It’s alright, little one. Everything is alright.”

 

_Of course it’s not alright. You’re lying already._

 

Obi-Wan laughs, but it’s a broken, bitter sound, and it quickly turns into a choked sob.

 

_Everything and everyone you’ve ever loved is dead and gone._

 

_Everything is so fucked._

 

In that moment, he all but collapses against the wall, onto the floor, and allows himself to feel the full extent of his despair only because his new shields are holding strong and Luke is once again dozing contentedly in his arms.

He tucks Anakin’s son close to him and--- for the first time in a very long time--- he lets the tears come willingly.

 

He mourns.

 

He mourns the dead.

 

He mourns his failures.

 

He mourns the lost way of life, the home to many, that was the Jedi Order.

 

He mourns like the Jedi never taught him to, _because_ the Jedi never taught him to, and because he had to teach himself through experience.   

 

When the tears have all but run out, and he’s so thoroughly exhausted he can feel sleep coming for him whether he wishes it to or not, he looks down at Luke, and calms himself in his warm, peaceful presence.

A presence so full of light and joy it’s spreading, as if it’s impossible to keep all of it contained.

And he wonders.

 

_It’s not alright, but maybe it will be._

 

 


End file.
